When I was sixteen-years old, I imagined myself in Tzahal. Clad in olive-green uniform and freckled from spending morning to night in the Middle Eastern sun, I would finally solidify the Israeli half of my identity that was constantly and unfairly overshadowed by my loud, McDonalds-gorging American passport.
Side note: I discovered this summer that fast food in Israel (and most of the world?) is five times as expensive as it is in the US, a sharp price difference that might well account for the staggering obesity rates back in America. But I am not writing to diagnose the root causes of the unhealthy American lifestyle. That post would be far simpler to write. This post is about why I chose not to enlist in the Israeli army. It is about my personal grappling with the conscription that comes with Israeli citizenship, and my realization of ripple effects that the draft has on Israeli collective consciousness of the occupation of Palestinian land.
The heart of the Israeli conscription law, called the Defense Service Law, reads as follows:
“…A male person of military age who has been called upon to report for regular service under subsection (a), shall be liable to regular service [and] a female person of military age who has been called upon to report for regular service under subsection (a) shall be liable to regular service…”[1]
Liable is the key word in the otherwise dull text of the legislation, published in 1948. Skirting army service in Israel entails exactly what the law reads: a liability. About 50% of all Israelis of draft age enlist, a total population that includes the Orthodox communities and Arab communities, both of which are exempt from conscripted service to begin with. Those two communities make up about 30% of Israel’s population, so if 30% of the population is exempt from service already, then the real number of Israelis who do not enlist while being technically eligible is closer to 30%. This means that a large number of technically eligible candidates for military service have found a way to evade that service. Common tactics include getting married (for women), claiming religious orthodoxy, or citing psychological and physical problems and completing a year of non-IDF related civil service. So, in fact, a large majority—70% of the eligible population—does exactly as they are expected.
In Israel, the army is more than just an army. It is a staple of cultural and civil society, as shaped by 67 years of the draft. Just as it is hard to obtain a decent job in the United States without a university degree, shirking the Israeli army is the equivalent of closing many career doors. Often, soldiers with assignments in the most prestigious units of intelligence will be offered lucrative and interesting high-tech jobs right out of their service.
I have sat at many a dinner table with friends who are soon to be drafted, where an hour can go by with nothing discussed but their upcoming service: what day-to-day life on base will be like, how prestigious their assignment is, whether or not they will be able to come home frequently. The subtopics of “army talk” are endless because, to eighteen year olds here, being a soldier is the foreseeable future. After each of these conversations stretches on, I almost always end by commenting on the weirdness of the institution. I will usually say something along the lines of: “You’re talking about the army like you’re planning for an exciting vacation or going to college or something!” The typical response I get is a “you won’t understand unless you’re in it”, followed by a sympathetic smile I imagine I might one day give my child when he or she asks about how babies are made. The Israeli army is a world unto itself, one that, in all truth, I gave up the chance of fully understanding when I decided against enlisting.
But here’s what I do understand, as an outsider looking in. When you are 18 years old (or 19 if you first do civil service), you are drafted. You are brought into the folds of what is made to look like just another chapter of your life. In a word, the army is nothing more or less than routine. You suffer through weeks of basic training, the end marked by a celebratory ceremony. Families and friends crowd into seats as you and your unit march in place and you receive the physical marker on your uniform that denotes to all familiar with IDF signage your job, rank, and sector. Tears are shed as the Israeli flag is raised high and the crowd sings a tender rendition of HaTikva. Conscription into the army is a highly moving event to all parties involved, and why shouldn’t it be? The newly minted soldier is achieving what the State has taught him or her is the highest honor of all—becoming a defender of the Jewish people. A feeling of pride is the most common reaction I’ve encountered relative to being part of the IDF, with indifference coming in at a close second.
Though armies need not be political bodies in and of themselves, a military organization is an instrument of whatever government it serves, the means by which sitting leaders implement military policy. This may seem an intuitive thought to some, but there seems to be very little thought given to the political effects of the IDF among drafted or soon-to-be drafted teenagers in Israel. The IDF is technically a non-political entity—and in many ways a necessary, highly important piece of the puzzle that is the Jewish state.But though the Israeli Defense Force is itself not inherently immoral, it is nonetheless the body that enacts decisions that the Netanyahu-led coalition makes regarding Palestinians, settlers, and border control. It cannot be de-politicized today, in 2015, while Israel is still an occupying power.
Israeli election results show almost half of voters voting left of the sitting government—and thus, presumably, against many of the sitting government’s policies. And yet, there is a large dissonance for most Israelis between condemning Netanyahu and connecting that condemnation to an awareness of the IDF’s political role. Thus, occurrences of people actively and loudly refusing their draft are few and far between. Between 1948 and today, only four formal “refusenik letters” have been released by groups of draft-aged Israelis banding together to refuse to serve in the Israeli army because of opposition to policies that the army actualizes—and writing an open letter to the government. In March 2014, close to 50 teenagers signed such a letter to Benjamin Netanyahu, citing “opposition to the military occupation of Palestinian territories.”[2] The letter caused an upheaval and made front-page news; the teens were called “spoiled” and “dishrags” by politicians and public personalities alike[3].
Something is wrong when only fifty voices of dissent—none delegitimizing the right of the Jewish state to exist or defend itself—are shut down in anger, disgust, and fear by mainstream society. These fifty individuals refused to serve due to “the construction of settlements on occupied lands, administrative detentions, torture, collective punishment and the unequal allocation of resources such as electricity and water.” [1] They refused because the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza is inhumane and a violation of international law.
Last week, a group of alumnae of the youth programming at Windows[4] had a mini reunion at our office. Eight recent high school graduates from Beit Ummar, a town in the Hebron area of the West Bank, a handful of Jewish Israelis from the Tel Aviv area, and a few Palestinians from Yafo gathered around a large table. Before their official activity began, we interns were encouraged to sit with them and chat. One of the girls spoke slowly and quietly at first, as if she was ill. Her friend explained that she was very weak after fasting in solidarity with Mohammad Allan, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad detainee who was in critical condition after sixty days of a hunger strike. Her friend, a Jewish girl, had been one of the students to sign the refusenik letter a year prior. Now, she was asked by her friends from Beit Ummar what she was up to these days.
Timidly, she told them she was soon enlisting. Her friends became visibly angry. “Why?”, asked the girl who had just finished fasting in solidarity with her fellow Palestinian. Later that afternoon, the Israeli girl explained to some of the interns that she realized not joining the army would prevent her from being able to follow any career she might want in the future. She assured us that she would not be doing an assignment that had anything to do with the occupied territories.
When even one among the already-tiny minority of the Israeli populace that speaks out against serving in the army—and does so because she does not want to be a part of perpetuating the status quo in Israel and the occupied territories—goes back on her declaration, something is very wrong. The institution of the IDF is so deeply engrained in Israeli life that it is nearly impossible to successfully assign blame where it is due. The blame due here is for blinding smart, hardworking, and kind men and women from seeing where “defense” ends and “occupation” begins. The blame due is for shaming all those who see that distinction. And, most importantly, blame is due for a society that makes it more and more difficult to dissent against the mainstream and still have access to the workforce and lead a successful life.
If every Israeli individual who opposed the ongoing occupation became a refusenik, perhaps fear of criticism would be replaced with a re-invigoration of self-awareness. Perhaps the sitting government would be replaced with one that actively works together with a willing Palestinian government to end this ongoing nightmare. When I decided not to join the IDF, I resigned myself to the fact that I would probably never become fully integrated into this society. In many ways that is heartbreaking to me; I love this land, this language, and these people more than almost anything else. But, above that love is a pain that comes from seeing this nation I hold dearly turn a blind eye to tragedies its government is committing. I gave up on donning the olive-green uniform. If all who see injustice choose to act instead of conform, maybe one day that won’t mean to this country that I also gave up on being a proud Israeli.
[1] http://www.mfa.gov.il/mfa/mfa-archive/1980-1989/pages/defence%20service%20law%20-consolidated%20version–%205746-1.aspx
[2] http://www.refusingtokill.net/Israel/50.Refuseniks.Letter.htm
[3] http://972mag.com/how-can-you-tell-that-israeli-refuseniks-are-scaring-the-system/88360/
[4] See previous blog post for an more in-depth explanation of the wonderful, brave organization with which I have been interning over the past month and a half.
SHEMEETSWORLD 